


The Luxury to apprehend

by middlemarch



Series: DeQuincey's iPad [4]
Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Blended family, F/M, Fluff, Marriage, arts and crafts, christmas crackers, stepmother - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 08:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8837716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: It was taking a while for them to get back, but the roads were icy and the hand-off, though amicable, often took a while as Owen stalled, for obvious reasons.





	

“See what I made, look!” Owen came through the door, brandishing something red and gold and shiny, nearly shouting in his excitement. It was impossible to get a closer look until he’d gotten off his coat and hat and fleece mittens, the third set this winter at their apartment. Mary didn’t know what iteration Eliza was on. Owen was so gleeful over whatever he’d made she couldn’t bring herself to repeat a recent reminder she might as well have put on an infinite loop “Inside voice, please.”

“Hang on, honey, let’s get your stuff all put away, careful, we don’t want to break what you made,” she said, smiling at Jed who was stamping his feet on the mat and trying to catch all of Owen’s outerwear that the little boy shed as vigorously as the trees did their leaves. It had been a cold, early winter and Mary was glad of it. Boston looked much better with a silvery frost and everything seemed more festive, but it did make arrivals and departures more elaborate.

“Okay, show me now. What did you make?” she said, beckoning him over to the kitchen table. It hadn’t been Eliza’s regular weekend, but they were flexible and she’d asked politely. Mary had blessed Jed’s ex for freeing up time to wrap Owen’s presents before 8 pm, to get a stew prepped for the crock-pot without 12 interruptions, to putter on the laptop finalizing her photo card. She would have been anxious about mailing them this late except Jed had insisted she get them addressed as part of the package even if she didn’t have a coupon for it. It offended her New England thrift but she’d agreed and just added another 25 names to the mailing list to hit a different price point. She’d managed a collage of pictures that featured Owen prominently but there was a great shot of Jed and Owen on the sailboat, two peas in a pod, and one of the three of them picking apples and she pretty satisfied with it overall.

“Can’t you tell, Mère?” Owen asked. She looked at what he held out and for the life of her, she couldn’t make out what it was meant to be. It was approaching 5 pm, still the witching hour for him, and she hoped she wouldn’t trigger a meltdown by not recognizing what he’d created.

“No, you have to tell me, I guess. I can see you worked hard on it,” she tried. He was a lot like Jed and she tried to use that to her advantage in guessing how to play things, but he was still just a little boy, shuttling between two houses, and quite prone to fussiness since he’d stopped sucking his thumb. His lower lip began to quiver with frustration but she smiled encouragingly and reached a hand to squeeze the nearest part of him she could reach.

“It’s a Christmas cracker! I made it with Mommy, we made a lot of them, she had Ava and Luke come over and we all made them and we ate gingerbread too. It makes a noise, but I can’t show you, it’ll be ruined,” he explained. “Don’t you know how to make a Christmas cracker? It’s extremely easy and you get to put a prize inside or a message. We usually get them in a box but Mommy said we could make them this year and we did.”

“Mommy could have been running a Fortune 500 company making those crackers, I think, Mary. How many did you make, Owen?” Jed asked, giving her a look.

“I think, 14, no, 11. Mommy kept a few but the rest are in my backpack,” he said. “We save them for Christmas dinner, ecept I’ll be at Mommy’s so we can pull them on Christmas Eve, right?” Owen said. 

“Of course. Why don’t you leave that here and go get your slippers on, then play with your Legos until dinner? It won’t be very long,” Jed said. Owen glanced at both of them and then scampered from the room after giving Mary one more look that said he couldn’t comprehend her lack of awareness of Christmas crackers but he’d forgive her anyway.

She looked at the Christmas cracker more closely; it was a toilet paper tube artfully covered with layers of red tissue paper and gold foil, the edges prinked, and something rattled inside it. She could imagine Owen’s delight in making it and the others that they’d find in his backpack; Eliza would have picked Lego minifigures and Schleich miniatures, nothing from the Dollar Store for the prizes and the ones intended for Jed and herself would have something equally appropriate, maybe Scrabble tile cufflinks for Jed and a Alex and Ani charm for Mary. Suddenly, it was too much, Owen in the next room talking to himself as he built a robot city, the crock-pot hissing a little because it was an old model, the image of Eliza, so elegant and competent, probably in a personalized apron and a chignon, supervising the afternoon activity, smiling at Jed when he came to pick up their son. Tears filled her eyes.

“Mary, what’s wrong?” Jed asked, catching sight of her face. She wiped away tears, sniffed, but she was still the beginning of a mess, she could tell.

“I can’t do this. How she is…I can’t do crafts and arrange these afternoons. That stew is from the Betty Crocker cook-book and I had to leave out the carrots because we didn’t have any. I’m not good at this stuff, this stuff that makes you a good mom,” she got out. “I’ll never be as good as mom as she is.”

“Oh, sweetheart. Mary, you’ll be a wonderful mother. You are, already. It’s not about doing crafts, it’s about caring about them and no one cares more, or better, than you,” Jed said, scooting his chair over closer to her, putting a hand on her cheek, her shoulder.

“But I don’t--I don’t care about this kind of stuff. Christmas crackers. Or when she made the turkey with him, out of handprints and had it framed? I would never think about doing that,” she said despairingly. Some remnant of her former confident self was giving her a full on side-eye for this, but it wasn’t enough to stop her. “He eats salmon at her house and we gave him boxed macaroni three times this week.”

“Mary, you are working 50, 60 hours a week as a pediatric oncologist at Children’s and you’re 37 weeks pregnant. There are handmade Christmas stockings hanging from the mantle you made 2 weeks ago and a custom Christmas card on your laptop and there is a little boy in there who just wants to show you what he made. It’s enough. You’re doing enough, more than enough, too much if you ask me. Or Sam. Or Char. She has had plenty to say to me about how it’s too much and how I should put my foot down. Caroline too. There is literally no way in which you are lacking and I would throw out every Christmas cracker in this house if I have to to prove it to you,” Jed said, moving his hands to her belly. It kept getting bigger though it seemed impossible and the rest of her team had started giving her appraising looks but she wasn’t willing to give up any of her maternity leave so she kept going to work wearing the same two pairs of black maternity pants and a lot of infinity scarves.

“You can’t. You wouldn’t. He’d cry his eyes out,” she muttered. He splayed his fingers over her belly and the baby kicked at his right hand.

“Okay, I wouldn’t throw out the crackers. Whatever. We’re not English, who the fuck cares? Eliza just got a bee in her bonnet. She likes this stuff and you don’t. You like to take him to the library and the park more than she does. Honestly, she wouldn’t want you upset over this, you know she wouldn’t. I bet you haven’t had anything to eat of drink since lunch, have you?” he said, sliding his hands to her sides and up, catching her breasts with his clever fingers. She couldn’t get much bigger without buying more clothes but she hoped the baby waited until after Christmas Eve and day to arrive so the holiday wasn’t entirely co-opted and Owen not insanely jealous of the new baby.

“No. But that’s not why I’m upset,” she said, even though it partly was and they both knew it. 

“I know, but still. How about I make you a chocolate malted? I’ll make enough for Owen to have some too, at dinner, mind you, and you can sort of sip it and put on ‘Christmas in Connecticut’ while I finish up in here. He’ll be occupied with the Legos for another fifteen minutes at least,” Jed suggested, his dark eyes tender and only half-amused at her, still with a hand pressed against her. She nodded and took as deep a breath as she could before she started to get up; he helped once he realized what she intended.

“M’sorry. For being so silly. And lame,” she said. He held her then and shifted so he could speak in her ear.

“You’re not silly or lame. You’re the brightest, most intelligent woman I know. I married you for your brains, not your looks, though you’re gorgeous, and not your arts-and-crafts mojo. I don’t want Martha Stewart in my bed,” he murmured.

“Was that an option for you?” she said, her usual humor reasserting itself and he laughed.

“You got me. She turned me down, Martha. Not up to par. Now let me make you a malted and go cue up Barbara Stanwyck. I want to hear Felix kvetching, while I finish up dinner,” he said, kissing her on the cheek softly. He tucked a real English Christmas cracker in his hospital go-bag and Mary pulled it on the 27th, jumping a little at the volume, giving Owen the yellow paper crown to wear. Laura Noel slept in her father’s arms, oblivious; she only cared about her mother’s heartbeat and the promise of milk.

**Author's Note:**

> I decided I wanted a story for the prompt: crackers, to feature the homemade kind I read about, made with toilet paper tubes and it felt like a good opportunity to revisit Owen and the DeQuincey's iPad universe. Christmas in Connecticut is a holiday movie about the holiday obviously but also what it means to be your true self and how domestic a woman can/could/should be. Plus Dennis Morgan sings and he has a beautiful Irish tenor. I highly recommend it.
> 
> The title is from Emily Dickinson. I think you guys can suss out the rest of the pop culture references.


End file.
